


Entering the Arena

by still_lycoris



Series: X-Men/Hunger Games Fusion [2]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Community: hc_bingo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 16:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11855517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: Hank doesn't expect to live through being a tribute for the Hunger Games.Charles knows what it is to living through being a tribute for the Hunger Games.





	Entering the Arena

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the hc_bingo prompt "arena."

When Hank heard his name called, his legs almost buckled.

Not him. It wasn't supposed to be him. His name was only in there the regulated seven times, just seven times. He'd worked out the odds and they were good, they were, they were … well, they were in his favour. So this couldn't be happening to him. It just couldn’t.

But it was. He was seventeen years old and people were moving back from him, eyes filled with pity for what would happen to Hank and relief that it wasn't them. He knew the feeling. He'd felt it every year that he'd been eligible. Sorry it's you, glad it's not me. Cruel but an unavoidable part of the human condition.

Only this time, it _was_ him.

He walked up to the stage slowly, trying to look strong but knowing he didn't. Knowing he looked like what he was, a lanky, terrified guy who was practically wetting himself out of fear from the death he was walking to.

The crowd gave him the usual muted applause. He could see his mother openly sobbing as she tried to clap. She knew he was going to die. She was going to have to watch it, watch him die pathetically. She was going to lose her son.

He shook hands with Joy, the female tribute. He didn't know her very well but he did know her, of course he did. They all had to know each other. That was how it worked, that was what it was. You knew each other, you killed each other or hoped someone else killed them so you didn't have to. 

He went through the last meetings in a sort of fog. Maybe if he didn't feel any of it, it would be okay. He could say goodbye to his parents without it really hurting because it wasn't him. It was someone else, someone brave and cool. He hugged his mother and shook his father's hand but it was a different him, a him that took over while the real self was far away. He didn't have to be sad. It wasn't anything to do with him.

The train was huge and at any other time, it would have been a little exciting. He could maybe have found out how it worked, asked people about the bits of it. He loved to know how anything worked. He loved to make things. When he could, he designed things, played with them. Designing was all he'd ever wanted to do. They'd said he might be able to go into a factory, take a step up rather than work on the tables. Now that wasn't going to happen. Because he was going to die.

He sat on the bed and locked his fingers together. He wasn't here. Not really. He was back home. Back home where it was safe and his mother was downstairs and father was looking after the chickens and everything was fine. Everything was just fine. At home.

“Hank?”

He blinked at the familiar, yet unfamiliar voice. A voice that had no place in the safe pretend home that he was making around himself but a voice that he did know, that he had heard. Charles Xavier, sitting in front of him, his face gentle and kind.

“I am so sorry,” he said and reached out, touching Hank's hand. “You poor, poor thing. But I'm going to help you, I promise.”

“You can't help me,” Hank said. “Nobody can. I'm going to die.”

He twisted his fingers together, turning knuckles white, twisting and twisting until the skin felt stretched almost to snapping point. Charles reached out and put his hands over Hank's. They were soft hands. Gentle.

“Not,” he said and his voice was serious. “if you win.”

*

Charles had been chosen as tribute when he was sixteen years old.

When his name had been read out, he had entered what he felt was a state of absolute clarity. He heard Raven cry out from the crowd, turned and looked at her agonised face and knew that he had no choice. He had to win.

He liked to tell himself that it had been just because of that. Because of seeing his adopted sister, seeing her pain, remembering how he'd always done everything he could to protect her. But he couldn't always lie to himself. Sometimes, he had to remember the way that his heart had already seemed to stop, the way his mind had gone cold the second the name “Charles” had been read out. He hadn't wanted to survive for Raven. He had wanted to survive for himself.

He hadn't wanted to die.

And unlike some people, he had the mind that could make it reality.

So he stepped up. He let himself look scared and vulnerable, but also charming, flirty. He smiled at the right people, cooperated, let himself be primped into good looks but also kept a certain amount of gentle reality there. He made sure to look uncertain in training but took in absolutely everything that he could, memorising what he saw, gauging every strength and weakness, trying to work it into some sort of plan.

He wasn't going to die. He wasn't going to be killed by these people. They wouldn't see him coming.

And they didn't.

Charles had killed eleven out of the twenty-three people he had been up against, both directly and indirectly. It was, apparently, a Hunger Games record.

Charles was not proud of it.

But he _was_ alive.

*

It was a blur, in the Capitol.

Hank found himself surrounded by confusing luxury, by meals and clothes and training sessions where he had to watch people who were more powerful than him fight and show off their skills. Skills he didn’t really have. 

Charles kept telling him that it didn't matter.

“You're clever, darling. You're clever and you're stronger than you think. I promise, you have a chance if you want one.”

“You keep saying that,” Hank said miserably. “I don't know why. I'm just not special enough to win.”

“You're wrong, Hank. I wish you believed that. I can already see how special you are and I hardly know you. I wish you'd give me a chance to know you better.”

He'd leaned forward then, stroked his fingers down Hank's face. They were gentle, kind and made Hank's skin tingle. He looked at Charles and Charles looked back, open and seemingly honest. 

“Please, Hank. Try to live. Try to believe you can. For me?”

It didn't seem like Hank could promise anything else when Charles was looking at him like that.

*

Charles hadn't got away unscathed.

When the tribute from District One had sliced his back open, he'd thought that it would be fine. Oh, it was briefly very painful and then worryingly numb but the Capitol could fix all sorts of damage. His sponsors had already sent him medicine to stop a cut from becoming infected and painkillers which he had used both for himself and to spike the food of some of the other tributes. He would be fine, as long as he survived. He would be fine.

When he woke up and still couldn't feel his legs, he knew that they had cheated him.

Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. Winners were dangerous. They were frightened, damaged people, all of whom knew how to kill and had done it before. Every winner had to be weakened in some way, secretly or not. With him, they just had a chance to make it more obvious. To sorrowfully tell everyone that Charles had been too badly wounded to fix, even with their wonderful technology, that he was a victor who had paid a terrible price. They gave him a wheelchair and brought him out to be cheered and adored and pitied.

No, he hadn't escaped unscathed.

But the wheelchair was the least of his problems.

*

Hank got a seven as his score.

It wasn't a bad score really. He’d done as Charles said, showed off his strength and agility and the game makers had obviously thought it was worth something. Charles smiled at him, like he was really proud and Hank could believe it. Charles _was_ proud of him, for no reason that made sense and it was … nice. Charles was nice.

He was proud of Joy too. She got an eight and was clearly excited by it. Hank wondered if she could win. She seemed tough, brave, confident. Better than him. They'd hardly spoken, they couldn't make themselves speak. Hank didn't want to get to know her. He hadn't known her at home. If he got to know her here, it would make her real.

It would make everything feel more real.

He was pretty sure that he made a terrible mess of his interview with Caesar Flickerman. He knew he was blushing, stumbling on the words that Charles had gently suggested but Caesar didn't seem to mind and Charles didn't either.

“You did well, darling, truly. People will listen to that and see that you're scared but also how brave you are. They won't take you lightly, I promise. You have a good chance.”

“If I don't come back, you'll tell my parents that I'm sorry, won't you? That I didn't say a better goodbye, that I didn't … I love them so much.”

“I'll tell them,” Charles said and his voice was kind. “I will tell them but they already know, you know. They already know that you love them because you are you. And you can come back, Hank. You can come back.”

He leaned in then, leaned in and kissed Hank very lightly on the lips. His mouth was soft and warm and Hank couldn't help leaning into it. He felt Charles's hands on his cheeks, felt them stroke and caress just for a few moments before Charles moved back.

“Something to come back for, darling. Please try?”

“Yes,” Hank said, staring into the beautiful eyes. “Yes.”

*

The dreams came first.

Dreams of waiting. Dreams of fighting. Dreams of death. Usually other people's. The tributes that he'd killed stood there, staring at him, whispering his name, hating him for what he'd done to them. Reminding him of how cold he had been, how calculating. What a monster he was. What a monster he was that lived.

Raven tried to help him. She shook him awake, she held his hand, she told him it was all right. And yet she looked at him differently. He could see it in her eyes, the change. She would never see him in the same way because she knew what he was. She had seen him kill and she knew what lurked beneath the surface. How could she ever really want to be around him?

So he pushed her away. And although she didn't actually leave him, he knew that she wasn't too sorry. Because she knew too. She knew what he was and so did everyone else. They had all seen him at his worst and so had the rest of world.

But, unlike Raven, that was what the rest of the world wanted to celebrate.

*

There were no weapons in the arena.

The cornucopia gave gifts of food and clothing and crampons but no swords, no knives, nothing. Hank wasn’t surprised really. It was a new game maker that year. They always liked to go conceptual in their first year. Had to stand out from whoever had gone before. So they would do something dramatic.

The other different thing about this arena was that it was entirely full of trees.

You could walk around on the ground but it was riddled with roots that tripped you easily and were infested with poisonous snakes. You were obviously meant to climb and so Hank did, scrambling through the branches. He knew what he was doing here at least. He was good at climbing. He’d always had the limbs for it, it turned out, although he’d never really had the time for it before. He climbed and moved and hid in the trees and it was another thing that wasn’t like something that he’d done before.

He wanted to go home. He wanted to go home, back to his parents, back to Charles, back to the other world where he belonged.

This wasn’t him. This was nothing to do with him. He was Hank McCoy and Hank McCoy didn’t climb or fight or anything like that. This was really somebody else, like it had been all along. 

And so when the killing started, it was easier just to let go.

*

For a while, Charles let go of it all.

Winners were rich. Winners were only expected to do some sort of hobby that the Capitol fans could invest in and mentor the children when it was time. So Charles didn’t do anything. He sat in his house and drank. He drank a lot until the world became less and less. Sometimes, it even when away entirely if he drank enough.

At first, Raven tried to stop him but not as firmly as she once would have done. Then she left him to it, let him drink himself to oblivion and back.

Sometimes, he lifted himself out of it a little, usually when he was mentoring. They deserved a chance, these children and his own mentor was dead now, leaving Charles alone with the responsibility. And they all deserved a chance, however small and he didn’t want to deny them that. So he forced himself to focus then, tried to put the bottle aside and watched them work and learn and die, no matter what he did. And a little part of him felt it was better that way. At least they didn’t have to live through what he did. They didn’t have to wake up every morning and remember what they’d done.

Was it really so much better to be alive?

*

Hank woke up to find himself in a white, white room.

For a little while, he was puzzled by that. Where was he? Why was he there? He had been in the arena, there had been trees ...

The memories came back slowly. The awful memories of what he had done and how he had survived.

The people that he had killed.

It was hard to feel anything about it at first. He lay there, going through it almost analytically. It hadn’t really felt like him doing any of those things. Hadn’t really seemed like he had struck and pushed and torn at those people. Yes, those things would have killed his opponents, yes, it would have been him in theory but it didn’t feel _real_. He was just Hank McCoy. Hank McCoy the loser. Losers didn’t ... win.

Charles came to see him. He looked at Hank with the gentle expression that Hank always liked to see on his face. Only now it was different, it was sad.

“They said you seemed a little confused.”

“I’m ... confused?”

Charles took his hand. His hand was lovely and warm. Hank gripped it back, feeling weirdly like he needed to hang onto something or he would fall, even though he was lying down.

“You won,” Charles said. “You are the winner of this year’s Hunger Games, Hank.”

“Oh,” Hank said. “Can I go home now?”

Charles just looked at him. His face was almost unbearably sad now. And somehow, Hank knew that he was never quite going to get to go home again.

*

They went almost everywhere together for a while.

Charles struggled to guide Hank through it all, just as his own mentor had found it hard to do it for him. How did you really help someone through this? How did you guide anybody through the shock of murder that was then praised and idolised by a crowd that simply didn’t understand? How did you help them with that first look from their family, the joy of seeing them again tempered by the knowledge that they had seen you all but claw someone to death?

You couldn’t, was the answer. There was no preparation, just as there wasn’t really any preparation for the games. You could give someone a weapon, you could tell them how to fight but in the end, nobody was ever ready for any of it.

So Charles just did what he could. He suggested things that Hank could say in the interviews, he engineered distractions when Hank looked like he might be sick, he sat with Hank at night and soothed him when the inevitable nightmares began. He cuddled him close and wondered vaguely if helping him live had, in the end, been crueller than letting him die.

There wasn’t an answer to that, of course. Some victors wished they’d died, only stayed alive because the Capitol threatened that their families would follow suit. Some were glad that they’d lived, even laughed at the “weakness” of the other.

But most were like Charles himself. Somewhere in the middle. Glad to live but hating the path they had taken to do it.

It was something that you had to survive in any way that you could.

At least now, Charles wasn’t alone.

That wasn’t much. But it was something. And when he thought of it like that, he couldn’t be sorry that he had Hank at his side.

At least they could try and survive together now.

*

He had been right. Home wasn’t home.

His parents were glad to see him. People were glad to see him. In their way. In their frightened, nervous way. And how could he tell them not to be? How could he tell them that everything was okay when they’d all seen what he’d done? Knew who he was? Heard the Capitol chanting his new nickname over and over.

_Beast_.

“Don’t let it get to you,” Charles whispered. “It’s all right, Hank. Let them call you what they want. You know who you are. Hold onto that. No matter what, you have to hold onto who I am.”

“I killed people,” Hank said numbly. “I’m a bad person. Why would I want to hold onto that?”

“You’re not a bad person,” Charles said. “You survived, Hank. You ... survived. That’s all there was to it.”

And maybe, Hank supposed, that was really all there was.


End file.
